The wear plates on this bucket were obviously worn. The way the wear bars were installed from the factory was not the best way. When the bars are installed parallel with the flow of the material they do not protect bucket well.

We removed the damaged wear bars and installed new wear bars perpendicular to the flow of material. The reason this configuration is better is the dirt (in this case) will get caught between the the bars and protect the bucket bottom. The material then is wearing against the hardened wear bars and dirt.

We could do this kind of work all day, we really enjoy working with pipe.

Pipe fabrication takes a different set of skills than structural fabrication and we thrive in the challenge.

A couple of wyes and a spool

We welded the pipe using a dual shield wire – E71T-1 – one of the easiest wires to use in a shop setting. It is termed “dual shield” because it uses both a shielding gas and flux which is inside the tubular wire.

This is the base of one of the legs of a three legged tower we worked on in May, 2012. This tower is in Fortuna, CA just south of Eureka. The weather was very nice for working when I was there, overcast and cool. However, when Dan was there they couldn’t work one of the days due to rain and wind. All the welding was done using flux core wire, E70T-8.

I repaired this “Remu” type excavator bucket for BlueIron, Inc. They had a job in Santa Cruz so I traveled there to work on the bucket.

The blade was obviously worn,

I cut it off and replaced with a new one.

The grinders were also worn and I hardfaced using tungsten powder.

Hardfacing is the overlaying of a harder material than the parent metal to help the existing metal last longer. There are several types of hardfacing. Some are designed to withstand abrasion which you would use in an application where the piece was subject to constant wear from dirt, sand, or gravel, etc. Others are designed for impact resistance which would be used in applications where the piece is used in crushing or chipping. The product I used is designed for high wear applications, it is a very specialized type of hardfacing and provides for excellent wearability.